It is well known to those skilled in the art that various types of road warning devices have been developed to cope with the problems incident to the building, maintenance and repair of the extensive highway systems, particularly characteristic of the United States and other developed countries.
Every traveler has observed that, once highways are constructed, they appear to be in a continuous process of repair, modification or refurbishment.
An unfortunate corollary of the intensive development and use of highways systems is the accidents which occur with great frequency and the necessity for blocking off portions of the highway until such accidents can be cleared away.
To cope with the aforesaid problems, various expedients have been developed, including various types of lights, markers and the like.
Most frequently utilized are conical markers which are disposed, sometimes for miles, along a highway section under repair or refurbishment. Also popular are vertical cylindrical markers having weighted bases and reflective elements mounted at their upper extremities.
For nighttime conditions various types of electrically actuated stroboscopic warning lights are provided which are frequently mounted on the primitive, long-utilized sawhorse.
All of the aforesaid devices constitute relatively primitive expedients which have failed to cope adequately with the high technology development incident to the highway systems as they are presently utilized in the United States.
The most objectionable feature of all of the presently utilized expedients is the fact that they are provided as a multiplicity of separate units which must be manually distributed along the section of the highway or other roadway which is being repaired or which must be marked for other reasons. Not only must the various units be placed upon the highway, but they must be recovered therefrom, frequently under hazardous conditions.
Another disadvantage of the presently utilized expedients is the fact that most of them depend upon the incorporation of reflective materials to provide nighttime indication of their location since the provision of electrically energized lights is an expensive proposition.
Inherent in the presently utilized expedients are inventory loss and theft problems. Because the units are separate, they are subject to being misappropriated for various purposes and, when hit by a car or other vehicle, are frequently left at the roadside because the difficulty of recapturing them, with consequent hazard to life and limb, is too great.
Prior art extensible marker cones are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,197,807 and 4,256,050. A linkage of road warning devices is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,880,537.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,879,148 discloses a permanently installed tape having road warning devices mounted thereupon and adapted to be deflected by the wheel of a motor vehicle passing thereover.
However, none of these patents discloses the broad concept of an elongated carrier having a plurality of road warning devices mounted thereupon with said carrier being adapted to be moved from a storage mode to a utilization mode in which the road warning devices are displayed on said carrier.